Acra, NY— Wave Farm announced today eight recipients of the 2016 Media Arts Assistance Fund for artists: Annie Berman, Brenda Ann Kenneally, Eli Keszler, Joseph McKay, John Morton, Erik Moskowitz and Amanda Trager, Margo Pelletier, and Sue C Perlgut.

The Media Arts Assistance Fund (MAAF) supports electronic media and film organizations, as well as individual artists, in all regions of New York State. The Fund provides unique and critical support with a focus on sustainability and public engagement. Grants to media artists support the distribution and exhibition of works in all genres of time-based and moving image media, including emergent technology. Funding assists artists in making recently completed works available to public audiences. Wave Farm’s Media Arts Assistance Fund is a Regrant Partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), Electronic Media and Film Program.

NYSCA Electronic Media & Film Program Director, Karen Helmerson, said “The NYSCA Regrant program managed by Wave Farm benefits our community in many important ways. This investment of public funds in New York State for art, culture, and heritage activities create opportunities for public engagement in the media arts, development of new technologies, and support for artists’ work, including their significant contribution to the creative economy.”

Wave Farm Executive Director Galen Joseph-Hunter said, “Wave Farm is delighted to be able to support these eight outstanding projects, that represent the diversity of the media arts landscape in New York State.” The Media Arts Assistance Fund for Artists opportunity is in January, annually. Grantees are selected through a competitive panel process. Detailed information about the 2016 MAAF projects is included on the following pages of this release.

The New York State Council on the Arts is dedicated to preserving and expanding the rich and diverse cultural resources that are and will become the heritage of New York's citizens. The Council believes in artistic excellence and the creative freedom of artists without censure, and the rights of all New Yorkers to access and experience the power of the arts and culture, and the vital contribution the arts make to the quality of life in New York communities. http://arts.ny.gov

Wave Farm is a non-profit arts organization that celebrates creative and community use of media and the airwaves. Our programs provide access to transmission technologies and support artists and organizations that engage with media as an art form. For more information, visit http://wavefarm.org

The Media Arts Assistance Fund for Artists 2016 Grantees and Project Descriptions

Annie Berman—Utopia 1.0: Post-Neo-Futurist-Capitalism in 3D!
Utopia 1.0: Post-Neo-Futurist-Capitalism in 3D! is a first-person cinematic expedition to Second Life, the once thriving virtual 3D online world, in search of what remains. Writes Berman, “Our guide navigates this strange, abandoned landscape seeking to understand the socio-economic desires of its residents, who, together, built this community-generated 3D world. Given the invitation to come build anything imaginable, what is it that we chose to create? Is it possible to imagine a new world; or, are we destined to replicate our existing world?” MAAF funding will support the distribution of the piece for VR.

Brenda Ann Kenneally—Upstate Girls: Unraveling Collar City
A traveling transmedia history of one block in North Central Troy, Upstate Girls: Unraveling Collar City will be exhibited inside a 20-foot U-Haul truck on the block it documents in Fall 2016. The exhibition is part of a larger more permanent collection, The North Troy Peoples History Museum, opening at the same time, in partnership with The Sanctuary for Independent Media and residents of the neighborhood. Both projects aim to expand the conversation about daily life in a specific and local community. In addition, Upstate Girls: Unraveling Collar City will travel to schools through out upstate New York, in connection with the publication of the forthcoming book “Upstate Girls: Unraveling Collar City” (Regan Arts: New York, Fall 2016/Spring 2017).

Eli Keszler—Rake Receiver
Rake Receiver is a work that draws from a wide range of digital archives--from 24/7 streaming remote environments, government broadcasts, to radio transmissions from around the world. The piece is encased in a small metal and plastic enclosure appearing somewhere between music box, speaker, radio, and a discrete minimalist enclosed technology. It is both a record and a new hybrid broadcasting device, as well as a composition that morphs the complexities of digital media into units of musical information. The work will be manufactured and distributed as an edition of 500.

Joseph McKay—Omega Mouse and Four Mice
McKay’s Omega Mouse is a simple 6-player video game. Four Mice is a two-player game where each player uses two mice to play. Both are fun and addictive games, but also belong in an art gallery context where fun addictive games are not the norm. Four Mice is currently on display in The Bret Llewellyn Art Gallery at Alfred State College, and Omega Mouse debuted at Postmasters Gallery in New York, December 2015. Both exhibitions to date have relied on borrowed equipment. With MAAF support, McKay will acquire the hardware elements needed to secure additional exhibition opportunities, and reach new audiences.

John Morton—Sound Bridge
Sound Bridge is an interactive sound installation exhibited on a pedestrian bridge in downtown Yonkers. Four sensors are placed along the railing of the bridge, and visitors are invited to activate and manipulate the sounds (made of field recordings of industrial activities, environmental sounds, and oral histories from Yonkers) and to musically respond to other visitors and to the environment. Initially designed as a two-year installation, MAAF funds will enable Sound Bridge to be winterized and remain installed long-term, as well as create a web presence for the work, linking the live sonic output of the installation with the addition of a "play at home" version.

Erik Moskowitz and Amanda Trager—TWO RUSSIANS IN THE FREE WORLD
Write Moskowitz and Trager, “A billionaire who doesn't collect art. An artist who doesn’t make art. In this manner of non-action/non-productivity, Manni and Sasha are introduced.” TWO RUSSIANS IN THE FREE WORLD maps connections between artistic inspiration, love, and the marketplace. The work exists as a video installation and a single-channel film. A final manifestation of the project is a series of eight webisodes that will be self-distributed on a web portal that allows for moderated public discourse and editorial commentary. Inspired by popular episodics, the narrative features suspense, humor, and densely-packed dialogue—devices that are put forward within the webisodic, web-portal format.

Margo Pelletier—Thirsty
Directed by Margo Pelletier, THIRSTY is a post-queer, musical film based on the life of Scott Townsend a.k.a., Thirsty Burlington, Provincetown, Massachusetts’ #1 Cher impersonator. Presented within a wild and entertaining framework, the film explores important issues surrounding: gender, bullying, persecution, acceptance, the power of self-invention and self-realization. THIRSTY was filmed in New York’s Hudson Valley and Capitol regions and is currently being submitted to film festivals, which will determine where it will have its world premiere.

Sue C Perlgut—Connie Cook: A Documentary
New York Republican Assemblywoman Constance Cook was one of only three women in the Assembly when she was elected in 1962. In 1970, she passed a bill in Albany that decriminalized abortion; three years later Roe v. Wade was based on her legislation. Connie Cook: A Documentary shows that she was a visionary advocating for women’s rights in health, government, education, and religious institutions. MAAF support will assist Perlgut in self-distributing the film to teens, college age women, women’s groups, and health clinics across the country.

For more information about the Media Arts Assistance Fund please visit http://wavefarm.org/mag